KK 4NL - oop with ace on flop

Villain is standard ABC tagg 15/11. Convince me I played this right or horribly wrong because it just feels dirty.

$0.02/$0.04 No Limit Holdem
Merge
9 Players
Hand Conversion Powered by weaktight.com

Stacks:
UTG ($6.96)
UTG+1 ($4.33)
MP1 ($6.16)
MP2 ($4)
MP3 ($3.20)
Hero (CO) ($4.16)
BTN ($4)
SB ($7.81)
BB ($4.58)

Pre-Flop: ($0.06, 9 players) Hero is CO
5 folds, Hero raises to $0.12, BTN calls $0.12, 2 folds

Flop: ($0.30, 2 players)
Hero bets $0.20, BTN calls $0.20

Turn: ($0.70, 2 players)
Hero checks, BTN checks

River: ($0.70, 2 players)
Hero bets $0.23, BTN calls $0.23

c/decide river, betting too thin given you have Kc in your hand

why do you bet flop if your read is that he is an ABC TAGG? when we bet we're only gonna get called by Aces,sets and some few FD's combos which arent enough given the fact that the Ac, Kc, Tc are out. w/o reads that he can call w/ TX, gutshots or underpairs, i would just c/f flop vs this guy. i would bet turn when he checks back flop an c/decide river.

I would most certainly bet the flop.

why? because he folds everything but A?we are beat almost always when he calls

eit: i'd rather bet 22 or QJ here then KK

If you're checking turn you should check river. Is betting turn that bad?

I honestly don't think he has that many Ax in his calling range to be honest. I figured pocket pairs and 78s+ or something pre. On the flop these guys will float with 88,99,Tx,Ax,KJ/QJ. Bikes was talking the other day about the bet-check-bet line and how much he hated it so I wanted to post this hand. The river is def too thin seeing how only a Q is the most likely to call. He would have to real bad to call 88/99/Tx here.

Originally Posted by Razvan729

why? because he folds everything but A?we are beat almost always when he calls

eit: i'd rather bet 22 or QJ here then KK

abc taggs will expect you to c-bet this flop 100% of the time so they'll call wider than an A. tens and FDs, sometimes he'll have JJ, sometimes he'll call with 88/99. Also he doesn't call pre with that many aces.

Betting the turn is much better than betting the river, however with the Kc blocker, might be better to c/f c/f after flop c-bet

betting 22 on this flop is abso horrible razvan.

QJ is an absurdly easy bet that you should be making 100 pro cent but 22 is an absurdly horrible bet.

if you're c/folding this flop razvan then that is a huge leak imo

Check-folding flop is horrible but check-calling is not unreasonable. FD is extremely unlikely and if he's on a lower pair he has very few outs. There are many ways a check can extract a little extra from the villain:

- it might induce a bluff,
- villain might call more lightly on later streets because he doesn't believe we have an A,
- villain might catch something on later streets that he thinks he can call with.

The main downsides of checking are:

- the board may turn too scary for the villain (low PP's are a big part of his range),
- having to play later streets oop with little information on villain.

playing bluff catcher over multiple streets is not what we want here.

If you aren't c betting KK on this flop then we shouldn't be betting weak suited aces either as they they beat the same hands.

With what frequency would we expect villain to call pre with A2-A9s?

on this flop vs this opp, i cbet A3,A8s,A9s, AT+,33,TT,AA, 78s,89s,KQ,KJ,QJ,22-66 , FD's and i c/c JJ-KK,A2s-A7s, JT,QT,KT , c/f rest of my range.

his preflop range i think is: 22-JJ sometimes QQ,, A2s-ATs, AT+ sometimes AK, 78s+, 79s+

I don't see why you would c bet 22-66 and fold other portions of your range. It may be rare that this hand gets to show down, but 22-66 have SOME value in that regard whereas other hands that you have in your c/f range have no value at all.

Like others have said, standard tag knows we almost always c bet this board and so he will be calling with more hands than usual. To react to this we need to widen our value range. I'd probably go as far as c betting TJ, though idk if thats bad.

Originally Posted by Razvan729

on this flop vs this opp, i cbet A3,A8s,A9s, AT+,33,TT,AA, 78s,89s,KQ,KJ,QJ,22-66 , FD's and i c/c JJ-KK,A2s-A7s, JT,QT,KT , c/f rest of my range..

his preflop range i think is: 22-JJ sometimes QQ,, A2s-ATs, AT+ sometimes AK, 78s+, 79s+

Originally Posted by Razvan729

on this flop vs this opp, i cbet A3,A8s,A9s, AT+,33,TT,AA, 78s,89s,KQ,KJ,QJ,22-66 , FD's and i c/c JJ-KK,A2s-A7s, JT,QT,KT , c/f rest of my range.

his preflop range i think is: 22-JJ sometimes QQ,, A2s-ATs, AT+ sometimes AK, 78s+, 79s+

So you c/c flop to c/f turn 100%. Solid strategy. Not saying this is bad all the time but doing it 100% in a spot where if we check we should be getting barreled nearly 100% OR end up just letting villain realize all his equity over 2streets does not seem optimal.

for now, from OP said we have no SD reads, just that he is ABC TAGG.

i bet 22-66,78s,89s because w/o reads i can assume due to his stats that is a very good chance he is folding often enough better made hands and/or hands w/ good equity vs mine to make the cbet profitabil ( i assume he folds 77-JJ,Tx, and broadways)

i cbet KQ,KJ,QJ and FD's because FE+Equity vs his calling range is +EV

i cbet A8s+, 2pair and sets for obvious value vs his calling range

i c/c JJ-KK, A2s-A7s, because i have SD value and because i think i have better equity vs his betting range when i check then i have equity vs calling range when i bet. yes i do c/f turn cause i ont have reads he is able to fire 2 barrels w/ worse oten enough to make it + EV.

i c/f the rest of my range cause i dont think my equity (FE and/or equity vs his calling/betting range) is good enough to bet or call.



this is all W/O READS, once i get to see him to SD and get better reads about his ranges then just the stats i will adjust my ranges according to that.


let's say he calls 2 streets w/ underpairs, then i will asumme he calls also w/ Tx and i will start cbetting my c/c range and fire a second barrel w/ it instead of c/c an c/f. and i will drop the bottom of my cbet range ( 22-66, 89,78) since it has no FE anymore like i thought and start c/f -ing it.

if he just calls one street w/ underpairs, Tx, but he fires 2 streets w/ them when i check then i start c/c and c/r or c/c again w/ more hands from my cbet range that would get one streets of value when i bet but get 2 streets of value when i check.

this is just ipothetic , i cant say this is exaclty how i would adjust ,it's just an ideea of how i would try to get some more value from his ranges when i get reads. but w/o reads about his SD, i would play like i said.

you need to adjust your vacuum game if this is how you play without reads

pls explain a bit, i am not sure what you mean by "vacuum game w/o reads".

think about it this way, all of us here posting have different games with different leaks (especially for the ones of us in micros), and you can definitely take notes of what we do and play accordingly and profitably, but all of us are going to be calling with JJ and the Tx in our range because you are a reg and regs cbet this flop a ton.

Originally Posted by Razvan729

pls explain a bit, i am not sure what you mean by "vacuum game w/o reads".

Originally Posted by Razvan729

pls explain a bit, i am not sure what you mean by "vacuum game w/o reads".

Vacuum game is basically how you SHOULD play versus different population densities. For example at 25NL with KK on 964 I can probably happily b/f versus anyone readless. At 1kNL versus an unknown this fold would be a huge mistake.

Another example would be minopening the button 100% at 200NL because a lot of the players are playing too tight. At 2NL though we 4x the button with a tighter range because everyone is playing way too loose. If you do this in vice versa you will be cutting hugely into your winrate.

This is why your "vacuum" game sucks. You are doing something absolutely terrible versus almost any villain and will only be playing correctly versus a very small % of the population. Once you realize this and stop trying to do what seems "optimal" if our opponent were to play standard(not to say your standard strategy here is even near optimal versus standard play) you will print lots of monies.

edit: back to the hand in question. the only people folding with worst on this flop are weak tight players who are going to take free cards with any draws they might have(this is a disaster). checking is going to get us 2barreled off all the shit you want to check in this spot or like I said they'll take a free card. aggressive players basically play perfectly v us and weak players play perfectly v us. when people are playing perfectly v us we are lightning money on fire.

now you might say but we get to showdown with Tx/JJ/QQ. Okay you might but those hands would have called a bet and not bet at any point themselves anyway after the flop

I guess the river is a blocking bet?

Originally Posted by Icanhastreebet

Vacuum game is basically how you SHOULD play versus different population densities. For example at 25NL with KK on 964 I can probably happily b/f versus anyone readless. At 1kNL versus an unknown this fold would be a huge mistake.

Another example would be minopening the button 100% at 200NL because a lot of the players are playing too tight. At 2NL though we 4x the button with a tighter range because everyone is playing way too loose. If you do this in vice versa you will be cutting hugely into your winrate.

This is why your "vacuum" game sucks. You are doing something absolutely terrible versus almost any villain and will only be playing correctly versus a very small % of the population. Once you realize this and stop trying to do what seems "optimal" if our opponent were to play standard(not to say your standard strategy here is even near optimal versus standard play) you will print lots of monies.

edit: back to the hand in question. the only people folding with worst on this flop are weak tight players who are going to take free cards with any draws they might have(this is a disaster). checking is going to get us 2barreled off all the shit you want to check in this spot or like I said they'll take a free card. aggressive players basically play perfectly v us and weak players play perfectly v us. when people are playing perfectly v us we are lightning money on fire.

now you might say but we get to showdown with Tx/JJ/QQ. Okay you might but those hands would have called a bet and not bet at any point themselves anyway after the flop

ty, now unerstand what "vacuum game" means.

would this flop cbet range be better vs this type of villain in spots like this? should i add some more combos or should i take out some ?
A2s-A9s, AT+, 33,TT,AA,JJ-KK,KQ,KJ,QJ and all of FD's we have.